Guidelines for wisdom contemplations.
There are four guidelines for wisdom contemplations.
Space,
Where to meditate.
Posture,
How to sit in meditation.
Actual instructions for the wisdom contemplations.
When and how much to meditate.
Point one,
Space,
Where to practice formal sitting meditation.
Choose a quiet space in your home or in a safe environment.
Create some privacy.
Close the door and ask others for some alone time.
Turn off any cell phones or other electronic devices such as radios or TVs.
Clean and tidy the space as this will help put your mind at ease.
Make the space pleasing to the senses,
Meaningful or sacred,
By arranging flowers,
Lighting candles or incense,
Setting up pictures or statues of inspiring people or places,
And making offerings or gestures of gratitude.
This helps to demarcate the meditation space from ordinary space.
Point two,
Posture.
How to sit in meditation according to the Indo-Tibetan seven-point Virochana posture.
In the beginning,
Comfort is more important than form.
If seated on the floor,
Place your legs in full or half lotus position or just cross them in front of you.
The right hand is placed in the left hand,
Palms facing upward,
With the tips of the thumbs gently touching.
If seated in a chair,
Place your feet flat on the ground and hands folded in your lap.
Eyes are half open,
Gazing softly at the space a foot or so in front of you.
This will help prevent you from falling asleep.
If restless,
Try closing the eyes completely to help your mind begin to relax.
Keep your spine erect like a stack of coins,
But not rigid.
This helps you stay alert.
Position your meditation cushion beneath your rear to raise the spine and tilt forward the pelvis.
If in a chair,
Come forward slightly,
With your back away from the back of the chair and your rear at the front half of the seat.
Shoulders are even and relaxed,
Be mindful not to hunch or slouch.
Dip your chin down slightly.
Keep a relaxed space between your lips and teeth,
Do not clench your jaw.
Rest your tongue softly on the roof of your palate.
There is also a simple two-point instruction,
Which is to straighten your spine and relax your body.
Point 3.
Instructions for wisdom contemplations.
Assume a comfortable posture,
Then begin by reflecting on your spiritual aspiration for your life in general and clarifying your intention to meditate in particular.
This is an opportunity for you to determine the direction towards which you are developing your mind.
As is the case in life,
Without clear direction,
There can be little success.
In the gradual path tradition,
There are three general aspirations one may choose to cultivate.
The humble aspiration to achieve some measure of peace and happiness,
The medium aspiration to commit to complete freedom from suffering and the achievement of perfect happiness,
And the great aspiration to achieve complete freedom and happiness in order to benefit all living beings.
Begin with five minutes of mindfulness of breath to create the optimal condition for contemplative learning.
You might like to cue the brief mindfulness of breath track from my first CD,
Right before one of the wisdom contemplation tracks in this CD,
So that there is a continuous meditation.
Remember to focus your awareness exclusively at the nostrils and breathe diaphragmatically in order to trigger the relaxation response.
After a short period,
You can allow the breath to settle into a natural rhythm.
Once you realize you've been distracted from the meditation object,
Whether it's the breath during mindfulness or wisdom theme from the gradual path,
Return your awareness back to the focus with an attitude of discipline,
Determination,
And patient friendliness.
When you feel more relaxed,
Calm and centered,
You can then shift into analytic meditation mode,
Which I will now explain.
Contemplative or analytic meditations do not try to exclude,
Restrict,
Or reduce thoughts as one does in a mindfulness meditation.
Rather,
They harness and focus the power of positive thinking,
Active imagination,
Analytical reasoning,
And inquisitive investigation towards the transformation of your mind.
Contemplative meditation uses reflective learning to develop a deeper understanding of yourself and reality,
Known variously as self-knowledge,
Intuitive insight,
Or transcendent wisdom.
The mechanisms of change in a wisdom contemplation involve analysis,
Realization,
And assimilation.
Realization is the discovery that results from a penetrative investigation into a particular theme or subject,
Such as the pervasiveness of suffering one discovers during the contemplation on the first noble truth.
Now a discovery at the cognitive level alone does not create lasting change in one's mind.
For a deeper wisdom to be cultivated,
A metabolic process of assimilation must occur,
In which the insight is made intuitive or instinctive at the gut level.
Insights and knowledge must be reinforced during periods of contemplative examination,
And then the mind must be permitted to rest in a non-conceptual mode in order to digest and integrate the insight.
The period of resting in non-conceptual awareness,
Also known as natural clarity or deep mindfulness,
Acts in the same way a period of savasana or profound rest does after one completes a series of hatha yoga postures.
You can also imagine the resting period as the process of rebooting your computer after downloading new software into the hard drive.
The final track in this CD entitled Resting the Mind in its Natural State will guide you into a receptive mode of open awareness in which the mind can begin this assimilation process.
You should cue the resting track to follow each analytic meditation in this album.
When in analytic mode,
Allow your inquisitive mind to explore new horizons of understanding that your routinized awareness may have taken for granted.
In other words,
Let the meditative reflections expand your mind past predetermined ideas and unchallenged certainties about the way things actually exist.
Come to the end of your analytic contemplation and resting period.
Seal your meditation with a dedication,
Recommitting your energies towards your initial aspiration.
Reflect that during the course of transforming and developing your mind,
You have just generated an enormous amount of positive energy.
Rather than allowing that energy just to disperse,
Imagine reinvesting it into your ongoing study,
Reflection,
And practice for your own benefit and for the benefit of all those around you.
Point Four.
When and How Much to Meditate A wisdom contemplation usually follows a period of stabilizing mindfulness.
Think of these as two separate techniques that you are combining into a single,
Continuous meditation period.
In the beginning,
Try doing five minutes of mindfulness meditation until you feel calm and stable.
Then add a wisdom contemplation and end by resting the mind in its natural state.
These three components of calm,
Analysis,
And assimilation prime the brain for the development of critical insight and form a crucial triad in the contemplative learning process.
Analytic meditations can and should occur outside the formal sitting meditation session.
Because analytic technique uses mental faculties of introspection,
Investigation,
And reflection,
It can be practiced at any moment.
For example,
When someone falsely accuses you and your sense of hurt pride,
Indignation,
Or self-righteousness arises and leads to anger,
Try using an analysis of self-contemplation based on the four keys presented in Track Five.
Observe the subjective solidity in which you feel your sense of self as being permanent,
Singular,
And unitary.
Then apply meditative investigation and observe the ontological status or realness of this sense of self.
Begin to dissolve this self-sense under analysis,
Leaving you searching but not finding any fixed ground to stand upon.
This groundlessness can be frightening at first.
It can also lead you to a kind of openness,
An organic,
Interconnected flow,
A selfless self of open potential and opportunity that is your true nature.
Unburdened by any rigid self-imposed construct or limitation,
You can become free to learn,
Grow,
And change,
And ultimately connect with all living things.
This is just one way of integrating meditation into everyday life,
By reflecting deeply on life's experiences and shaking your tightly held assumptions so that new,
More realistic understanding can flourish.
As I've said before,
I call meditating an everyday life doing mental yoga because you're stretching your mind past rigid,
Egocentric habits and tendencies that may keep you bound to distraction and dissatisfaction.
You can transform your misperceptions of self and world into the wisdom of selflessness and interconnectivity.
This is the purpose of your life.
Reflect on what the gradual path founder,
Master Atisha,
Has said,
The greatest achievement is selflessness.
The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.
The greatest wisdom is seeing through fixed appearances.
